This Might be a Love Story
by BaronessBlixen
Summary: Niles and Daphne's story told through a short collection of drabbles. One-shot.


**This Might be a Love Story**

**A/N: A different, rather experimental format. I needed to do something else and I've fallen in love with drabbles so this story is written entirely in drabbles (100 words exactly). Hope you give it a chance!**

i.

The moment he sees her, it's not love. Not even lust, desire, or attraction. First and foremost it's surprise. All the other emotions (unknown, seemingly unrelated) come afterwards; when she smiles, his life begins anew. When she talks, his insides start singing. When she touches him, he dies. In his heart he knows she is her; she is the angel, the goddess he's been told doesn't exist. She is there, she is her. And he, he is bound. For life, by a contract, by marriage. Niles, someone says. Reminding him who he is. Who he isn't. Not his to have.

ii.

Friendship is not something Niles is good at. He doesn't like things he is not good at. Watching her is easy enough. Loving her from a distance is painful at times, yet he would not want to trade. In these short moments, she is his Daphne (only his). The angel of his dreams, the mother of his children. Someone – Frasier – always wakes him from his daydreams in those early days when he still has enough hair to feel youngish. The words he wants to tell her (whisper) are within him, but the timing isn't. It's always off. Friendship it is.

iii.

Love has no rules. Love has no boundaries. Niles throws around images, quotes and banal definitions in his head to justify this. All of this. Daphne is in his arms; her smell is in his nose (it always is, but not like _this_). She is everywhere. Her hands, her warmth. _She_. It's perfect (if there ever was a moment to be described perfect, it is this). She looks at him, touches him. "I had no idea you were such a good actor," she bursts his bubble, his dream. Niles falls down (and farther down). Love just doesn't play by rules.

iv.

A string of almost, what-ifs and close encounters follows him like an unwanted puppy. Niles still looks at Daphne like he did on that first day. No, he corrects himself, he looks at her differently. If it is at all possible, he finds her more beautiful now than he did back then. Maybe it's knowing her; her strengths, her flaws and her idiosyncrasies are all within his heart by now. She's his friend, which is so unlikely that sometimes he has to remind himself. Then he does. And he forgets to find his courage to ask her out for real.

v.

Seven years he's never stopped loving her. Sometimes, his hope left him. Sometimes, his hope was all that kept him going. Seven years of waiting to hear her say 'I love you'; he wants to stop right there, right that second. But time doesn't stop and she says 'but' and she's gone and it's been seven years. He doesn't think he can handle another seven years. His night is sleepless, his morning is dreadful. Niles can't bear the thought of hearing her say 'I do' when he is not the one she says these words to. Seven years he's wasted.

vi.

Niles feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. The world including Daphne's love. It's heavy (but it's always been heavy). The guilt though... he could do without. When he kisses her, when he feels her body melting against his he knows they couldn't have gone any other way. The guilt though... Niles feels it sometimes; sometimes it just comes out and hits him. He has to remind himself how lucky he is. Lucky that Daphne chose him after all. When she kisses him with so much love, he knows the guilt, the weight of it, is worth it.

vii.

When she's gone, he misses her. When she comes back, he still misses her. Niles can't fathom the fact that this is still his Daphne. She's changed – how could she have changed? In his eyes, she was always a constant (his mistake, he realizes bitterly). No one is a constant. No one is perfect. He isn't, and Daphne isn't either (she never was). So he tells her. Just the pain in her eyes hurts him. He can't pause, he can't stop. He needs her to understand he's always loved her in every way. Daphne understands him like she always has.

viii.

The moment he opens the door, he is overwhelmed with love for Daphne. In her eyes, he can read distress though and his heart goes out to her. 'I want to marry you, Niles Crane', she says and who is he to not grant her this wish? On their way to get married, he doesn't feel nervous like he did with Maris, and even Mel. This is the only right path (a dream come true). Her head is on his shoulder and her hand is in his. No words are needed to tell her how much he loves her. Forever.

ix.

Niles awakes at night. Daphne has just slapped him – hard. Ever since she's gotten pregnant, she's been doing this again. He's been sharing his bed with her for years now. Sometimes in these moments when she hurts him, he is not even angry with her. He just looks at her, still sleeping, still the love of his life. The mother of his child. The pain, wherever it is, it reminds him that she's his love. Like a pinch to remind him this isn't a dream. His reality. Their love. In the morning, he won't remember being awake at night anyway.

x.

Niles holds his son. He feels his own father near, feels closer to him immediately. There is so much love within him all of a sudden. David, who is still so new, so untainted and already so loved. Then there is Daphne; thinking back to the first time he saw her he never could have imagined all of this. He looks at her; his love. The word 'love' does not at all describe what he feels for her. In a way, it's hollow. He'll need the rest of their lives to understand, to make her feel the same. He will.

**END**


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